‘On the night in question a significant quantity of drink had been taken and you had sex with her without her consent, which you now acknowledge, in a garage and with the passage of time it’s quite clear the traumatic effects of that night have not lessened with regards to the victim.

‘She’s done well with her life, she’s recovered to some extent but her victim personal statement makes it absolutely clear the effects and scars will never leave her.’

Reading the victim’s impact statement prosecutor Chris Stopa said: ‘I was a young girl when David Ayrton raped me.

‘At the time I didn’t trust the police and did not want to make a statement.

‘As the years have passed I’ve never forgotten the incident. I’ll never forget how he forced himself on me, I was hysterical and I lived in fear all the time.’

‘At the time I thought I was a real tough cookie.

‘It showed I was not.’

She added: ‘I was no longer that teenager that ran away.’

Speaking of when police approached her years later for a statement, she said: ‘I was initially shocked and all the awful memories... that changed my life came flooding back to me.’

Mr Stopa revealed Ayrton, who will be sent to a male prison, had previously been given a hospital order for arson reckless as to life in danger in 2007 at Bournemouth Crown Court but had been given conditional release.

Ayrton also has previous convictions for seven counts of possession of indecent images of children in 2014.

It was after she pleaded guilty to this that she confessed to the home worker about the rape.

Ann-Marie Talbot, for Ayrton, said the defendant showed remorse and accepts the sex was non-consensual.

Ms Talbot said Ayrton had been sexually abused between the ages of eight and 16.

A report described Ayrton as risk to teenage girls, the court heard.

The judge added: ‘I do accept that your background is a difficult one, you were the subject of sexual abuse.

‘The cycle continues with you being an abuser.’

He added: ‘I accept you have mental health problems and you’re agonising over gender issues and now wish to live as a woman although no operation has taken place.’

During the trial the court how Ayrton had told a care worker at Heywood Sumner House, where she lives, that she had ‘done something that she shouldn’t have done’.

Giving evidence via a video the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said Ayrton raped her on a sofa in the garage.

The victim said: ‘I know it was over quickly but it felt like it was forever.

‘He just lay on top of me, it must have been seconds but it felt like it was minutes. He just sat up as if it was nothing.’

The victim said Ayrton, who she had been drinking alcohol with, put weight on her during the rape.

She said she could not move one arm as it was against the back of the sofa and Ayrton – who then had medium-length greasy brown hair – held the other.

She said she ‘couldn’t breathe’ when Ayrton went to kiss her.

‘I’m sure there was a point I went to slap him but I couldn’t move my arm,’ she said on the video.

She added: ‘I said get off me. I said it three or four times. It was more his weight on me at that point.

‘That’s when he was kissing my face, slobbering on my face. I couldn’t breathe.’

She said Ayrton then sat down before picking up something off the floor and left the garage they had been in.

Ayrton, of Heywood Summer House, South Gorley, Fordingbridge, denied the rape, which happened between October and November 2004, but was found guilty by a jury in January.